


Now I'll Call You a Memory

by foreverdreaming890



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, Unrequited Love, band!au, if you think about it, kinda fluffly?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8804089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreverdreaming890/pseuds/foreverdreaming890
Summary: Sehun tells himself to get over it. Unfortunately, Luhan doesn’t make it all that easy to forget him.
mention of past member of exo





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Eyes, Nose, Lips by Taeyang. Also this entire fic, probably.

 It’s two a.m when Sehun knocks on Minseok’s door.

 “Hyung?” He whispers, eyes wide with worry.

 “Sehunnie?” Is the reply, same soft tone, yet Sehun still flinches at the nickname. “What are you doing here?”

 The younger chooses to ignore the question, and climbs up to the older’s bed, forcing Minseok to move over and be squished against the wall and his much taller, much bigger dongsaeng. 

 “Why are you still awake?” Sehun asks, once he’s settled himself in. He awaits no reply as he says, “It’s because of him, isn’t it?”

 Silence. Minseok sighs after a while, nodding and turning to face his friend. “You could say that.”

 Sehun buries his head in the other’s chest, gulping before saying, “You two were really close, right?”

 “Not as close as you two,” The older pats his friend’s head and plays with his hair, “I’m really sorry.”

 The both of them stay silent, Minseok’s comforting gestures and Sehun’s heavy breaths. They both know what’s gonna happen after this. It’ll be just like what happened with Kris, the two parties refusing to acknowledge each other’s existence, refusing to talk to and about each other, refusing to say the other’s name. They’ll have to make up some lie, like how they’ll be trying their best after this, like how everything will be okay after this, like how nothing has changed ever since their debut days. The only time they’ll have before faking smiles and making up lies is this one night, the night when everything is quiet and everyone stays awake the entire time, trying to figure out a way to make them seem like they’re okay.

 “Did he say anything to you?” Minseok breaks the silence, knowing this conversation needed to happen, either sooner or later.

 Sehun shrugs. “Nothing much, but now that I think about it, he was dropping hints the entire time,” The older silently agrees, “And it wasn’t like it wasn’t obvious, right?”

 Now this was new.

 “What do you mean?” Minseok asks.

 “I mean, we all knew it was bound to happen,” Sehun feigns indifference, but his hyung can tell he’s tense, “With Kris making the first move, someone was bound to follow in his footsteps,” he stops, and for a moment Minseok thinks he’s done talking, but then he takes a deep breath and continues, “And even though we all pretend we can’t see, everyone knows what was happening to them, what’s happening to us, right now. We act like everything’s okay and we put on this mask to hide our true feelings behind, but the truth is, we’re all broken people, and they just took the easy way out.”

 Once the initial shock wears off, the older man stops petting his dongsaeng and changes his tone to a serious one. “How can you say that?” He asks, anger growing in him. “How can you be so frustratingly casual about all this? Both Kris and Luhan were going through some serious stuff, yes, but how can you just say that they gave up? They didn’t, they haven’t, and I know you’re clouded by your loneliness and grief right now but you have no right to say that about them, or anyone, for that matter.”

 The outburst makes Sehun finally look at his hyung, really look him in the eyes, and, for the first time in a long time, someone sees Sehun crying. Their silence is quickly filled by quiet sobs, and soon enough Sehun is sitting up, burying his face in his hands and cowaring behind his knees, where no one can see his tears falling.

 “Sehun-ah,” Minseok says in a softer voice, after the sobs have died down a bit, “I know you miss them, we all do, but…” He sighs and also sits up. “You need to know you can’t blame them for doing what they did. We all saw what they were going through, what was happening to them.”

 “No,” The younger says, surprising the other once again. “Not ‘what they were going through’, hyung,” He looks up, at the ceiling, and sees the stars shining bright in the night sky, “It’s ‘what they were doing to them’. What  _ we _ were doing to them. The staff treated them like shit, more than how they treated us, the people all preferred us, the Koreans, than them, the Chinese, even the fans, who were supposed to be there for them, they all…” He lowers his voice. “Everyone left them. They were alone and hurt and tired, and yet no one cared. What I said earlier, I wasn’t...I didn’t mean to blame them, hyung. I was saying that every one of us is tired and we’re sick of these uptight schedules, sick of this company, sick of this life, and we all can’t stand each other, and everyone thinks we’re this perfect family but we’re not, we’re really not and I hate that no one sees that.”

 Minseok frowns. “You can’t expect everything to just be perfect, Sehunnie, we’re idols, after all,” He takes the other’s hand in his, “But this is what we signed up for, either knowingly or not.”

 “I know, but--” The younger stops himself, sighing before adding, “I miss him, hyung. You all miss him too, I know, but...I--I  _ miss _ him. And I love him.”

 And he waits until they’re both back to lying down, nearly asleep, to add, quickly and quietly, “Sometimes I wish I were brave enough to go with him.”

 

 The next time they talk about him, in an interview with a magazine or whatever, no one ever mentions Luhan by name.

 

 They all return that day feeling worn out, tired, more so than the other days. Everything’s just been happening so fast, with Kris leaving then Luhan leaving then having to deal with not only that, but daily training and interviews where everyone pretends not to care, photoshoots they know all too well that only happen because they need to stay relevant in the music industry, and, most of all, having to assure the fans and media that everything is alright.

 It’s not much of a surprise when Jongdae goes to the bathroom to take a bath and gets out of it smelling exactly like Luhan. Nor is it a shock when Tao eats a piece of cake on the fridge that was Luhan’s favorite flavor. Not that anyone besides Sehun and Minseok notice.

 Sleeping arrangements have to be made, since Minseok now has no one to share a room with, both of his roommates gone. The last one to wake up in the mornings is now Sehun, not that it makes any difference. Jongdae, Minseok, Yixing and, sometimes, the vocalists of K have to divide Luhan’s parts, while Tao has to learn all the rap parts by himself, some rare times with the help of Chanyeol or Sehun. Their schedules are much more uptight, having to not only learn new dances but also learn how to perform the previous ones without two dancers. Not to mention, M now had no leader.

 Everything, to say the least, was chaos.

 

 It’s been two weeks, and Luhan still hasn’t unfollowed any one of the members on Instagram, despite his friends having deleted him from their accounts the very day he announced he was suing the company. Even knowing better, Sehun can’t help but hope it means Luhan still cares for them.

 

 After almost two months of completely ignoring Luhan’s existence in public, Sehun finally forgets himself and lets a tear drop while he’s returning to Korea. In the airport, Sehun’s being pushed and pulled by the crowd of fans everywhere, and suddenly he thinks of how, in times like these, Luhan would always hold his hand afterwards and tell him comforting words and sing him soft lullabies. 

 Luhan would lay his head on his own lap and play with his hair and sing, the other members joining in sometimes, and those moments would really feel like they were a family.

 

 Seeing his bandmates crying onstage, Sehun can’t help but feel sorrowful, when the crowd’s cheers are low and sad, when Baekhyun’s and Jongdae’s voices are harmonizing to this melancholic beat, when not even Chanyeol can keep on smiling for the cameras.

 It doesn’t happen very often, but there’ll be times when the entirety of EXO is tired and they become aware that two of their precious brothers are gone and the song they all wrote together turns into a sad love ballad and everyone can’t help themselves but feel a little sick, because it’s in those moments that they’ll realise they aren’t a family anymore and the promise they all made back in the beginning was broken the moment one of them left his brothers without saying goodbye, and that the words they aren’t allowed to say are the only words they actually want to say.

 And then they’ll start crying and the company will punish them later for it but they don’t care because they’re incomplete and all they want to do is hug each other and wish to go back to the way things were and the pressure being put on them to make them forget those two important people only makes them think about them more, and they’ll cry because  _ they can’t go back _ .

 

 “Hyung, do you think what we’re doing is the right thing?”

 “...If it’s what makes the fans happy.”

 “...But they’re not happy. They’re not happy, and we aren’t happy. We miss Luhan and Kris, the fans miss Luhan and Kris, Luhan and Kris miss us. No one is happy.”

 “Then does that answer your question?”

 

 Zitao leaves them not soon after Exodus, their first album without Luhan, is released. They can’t even act like they’re surprised.

 

 Their next album is a huge hit. Sehun and Xiumin get more lines, which pleases the fans, but is only a small excuse to compensate for the fact that three members are now gone, all Chinese.

 

 “Yixing-hyung, you’re not leaving us too, right?”

 “...I’m always here for you, Sehun-ah.”

 

 Promise.

 A song Jongdae wrote and Yixing composed, Chanyeol, the rap part. A song, but also a promise, to their fans, to themselves. 

 A song made by them, for them, from them. No company to control what lyrics to cut out, no company telling them what parts of the song aren’t very appropriate, no one making them write anything they don’t want to write. The first actual song since Mama that was completely written by them, themselves.

 So of course it’ll mean a lot. It’s the first song since the time they were still 12, to actually convey what they wanted it to mean. It’s their minds, their souls, being left open for anyone to hear. Their stories, everything, it’s all in there, in one song, the only thing keeping them together, at this point.

 After all they’ve been through, all the rough moments in their life and career, it all leads to this. Never did they ever think they would be standing where they are now. 9 members, millions of fans worldwide, touring all over the world, and one song keeping them together.

 And, really, they promise, everything will all be worth it.


End file.
